In William Wordsworth’s autobiographical poem, The Prelude, the speaker, who in this case is also the poet, encounters unfamiliar aspects of the natural world. These unfamiliar aspects cause the speaker’s changing responses to his experience evolving from an ignorantly blissful boy who enjoys the “troubled pleasure” (ln.6) brought on by finding a boat and leaving nature’s comfort to a man who has loss his innocence and finds that the “covert of the willow tree [a symbol of enchantment, Wordsworth’s initial feeling, and sorrow, Wordsworth’s concluding feeling, making the willow tree suspect to the theme of allusion v. reality (his alluded original feeling of enchantment “proud of his skill” (ln. 12) v. his realized feeling of sorrow in the end
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By telling the story of his coming-of-age Wordsworth argues that growing up and losing one’s innocence is an inescapable fate that all will have to face and that once one has encountered their own “craggy steep” (ln.21) an irreversible change in consciousness occurs whether or not the receipt wants it or is ready to face reality.
Wordsworth’s use of imagery to convey to the enormity of his own “craggy steep” (ln.21), also referred to as the “huge peak” (ln. 22), allows for his change in response and transition into manhood by encountering a new aspect of nature which symbolizes one’s loss of innocence and one’s inability to return to an innocent state. By employing diction and tone in the beginning of his excerpt Wordsworth depicts himself as an ignorantly blissful boy pushed on by the forces of nature using words such as “sparkling light” (ln.11) and images of his rowing to be “like a swan” (ln. 20) a beautiful image showing his initial attitude to his experience to be excited by his little adventure. However, after encountering his once proud “chosen …show more content…
24) with his oars can he or anyone escape. By using imagery to convey to the enormity of the “huge peak” (ln. 22) and by using contrasting words to further emphasize Wordsworth’s changing consciousness, he is able to tell his story of coming-of-age and the frightening, inescapable, irreversible transition into the future and manhood that he faced. Wordsworth’s message about losing one’s innocence, previously being excited by the appeal of the future until he encountered it in its realized form, in this passage referred to as “a huge peak” (ln. 22), and becoming fearful of the future, can be broadened to my own life and the approaching future that I face. I will be going off to college next year and while this idea used to only make me excited and wanting the future to come faster, as time passes and the future of college lies right in front of me, I am becoming scared by its reality. However, one cannot escape their future as time is an unchangeable factor of life that one can neither fasten nor slow down, and I, like Wordsworth, have seen the “peak” (ln. 22) and am beginning to prepare for what lies
By telling the story of his coming-of-age Wordsworth argues that growing up and losing one’s innocence is an inescapable fate that all will have to face and that once one has encountered their own “craggy steep” (ln.21) an irreversible change in consciousness occurs whether or not the receipt wants it or is ready to face reality.
Wordsworth’s use of imagery to convey to the enormity of his own “craggy steep” (ln.21), also referred to as the “huge peak” (ln. 22), allows for his change in response and transition into manhood by encountering a new aspect of nature which symbolizes one’s loss of innocence and one’s inability to return to an innocent state. By employing diction and tone in the beginning of his excerpt Wordsworth depicts himself as an ignorantly blissful boy pushed on by the forces of nature using words such as “sparkling light” (ln.11) and images of his rowing to be “like a swan” (ln. 20) a beautiful image showing his initial attitude to his experience to be excited by his little adventure. However, after encountering his once proud “chosen …show more content…
24) with his oars can he or anyone escape. By using imagery to convey to the enormity of the “huge peak” (ln. 22) and by using contrasting words to further emphasize Wordsworth’s changing consciousness, he is able to tell his story of coming-of-age and the frightening, inescapable, irreversible transition into the future and manhood that he faced. Wordsworth’s message about losing one’s innocence, previously being excited by the appeal of the future until he encountered it in its realized form, in this passage referred to as “a huge peak” (ln. 22), and becoming fearful of the future, can be broadened to my own life and the approaching future that I face. I will be going off to college next year and while this idea used to only make me excited and wanting the future to come faster, as time passes and the future of college lies right in front of me, I am becoming scared by its reality. However, one cannot escape their future as time is an unchangeable factor of life that one can neither fasten nor slow down, and I, like Wordsworth, have seen the “peak” (ln. 22) and am beginning to prepare for what lies